


Slant, Slip, Slope

by theherocomplex



Series: Guitar and Video Games [5]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Apritello, Gen, Pre-Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/pseuds/theherocomplex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new enemy haunts the edges of the turtles' lives. April's the first to fall, but she's not the real target.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place about a month after "Auld Lang Syne", and features my ten-years-older versions of the 2k12 characters.

_February 9th._

This isn’t the first or even the fifth time April’s woken up in the hospital, and as always, Casey’s sitting next to her bed, looking almost as bad as she feels. He’s asleep, head dropped low between his shoulders. The room is dim, but in the weak light filtering in through the curtains, she can see two handprints’ worth of bruises ringing his neck.

“Casey?” she whispers, and cringes as the plastic tubes around her face shift. At least there isn’t a feeding tube this time. He doesn’t move, so she clears her throat and tries again.

“Casey. What —” 

He jolts awake, eyes wild until he sees April reaching out for him, and then he grabs her hand and squeezes until she hisses and tries to pull away.

“Hurts,” she says, in her new, sand-blasted voice. Everything hurts, but there’s a special pain knotted in her thigh and in her shoulder. Her body feels thick and heavy, like she’s filled with seawater. A quiet, serious voice in the back of her head tries to estimate just how much pain medication has been pumped into her to keep the pain at arms’-length, but she can barely concentrate hard enough to keep Casey’s face in focus. “What happened?”

For a long, wandering moment, Casey looks like he’s about to be sick, and panic slams April right in the gut.

She tries to sit up, hooking numb fingers in the tubes bunched around her head and arms, trying to pull free. If Casey’s that bad, and she’s  _this_ bad, then the guys — then Donnie —

“The guys,” she says, already close to crying. “They’re not — oh, god…” 

“April, April!” Casey squeezes her wrist until she settles back against her pillows, panting and aching. The pain in her thigh gnaws into her muscles, jarred awake by her movement. “C’mon, April, you gotta calm down. The guys are fine.”

She sucks in a rattling breath and lets Casey chafe her hand in his to warm it. “They’re okay?” There’s another question underneath it, a purely selfish one. Casey answers it with a wink and brushes the hair out of her eyes.

“Nothin’ worse than what they’re used to. Splinter patched ‘em up. They been textin’ me every fifteen minutes about you for the past two days. I think they’re stayin’ up in shifts to do it.”

“Two —” April tries to blink past the haze from the medication. She knows it’s a bad idea to wake up, especially when her thigh already hurts enough to take her breath away, but she does it anyways. “Two days?”

Casey sits down on the edge of her bed, still holding her hand. “Yeah,” he says, with the air of a man who really, truly wishes he had never said anything at all.

“W-what the hell happened?” she stutters, and promises herself she won’t cry.

Before he speaks, Casey takes a long moment to compose himself, and that, more than the hospital bed, or the tubes and needles, or the pain, is what makes April realize just how bad it was. Casey never hesitates; he goes in yelling and swinging, and Godspeed to whoever gets in his way.

“You fell,” he says eventually. “Donnie tried to catch you, but —”

***

 _February 7th_.

“— April, I didn’t catch that. What did you say?” Donnie turns up the volume on his headset and waits for April’s reply. He feels his brothers at his back, leaning in close to listen. He waves them back impatiently, wishing at least one of them understood what  _personal space_  meant.

“Got movement down by the docks,” she whispers, lisping to hide any sibilants that could give her away. “Looks like smugglers — electronics, I think.  _Casey,_ _don’t you dare_.”

Donnie can only imagine what Casey is trying to do. And he can only imagine the look on April’s face, the one that says move one muscle and I reach down your throat and turn you inside out. He’s been the recipient of it more than once and it will never not be terrifying.

There’s a low sigh from Casey, aggrieved but obedient, and then April’s back.

“Sorry, Casey’s getting a little excited. Anyways. They’re unloading crates of — Casey, can you see? Oh, shit.”

“April, April, what is it?”

“Those aren’t electronics, they’re guns.”

Donnie hisses through his teeth, but he’s not surprised. New York has been quiet lately — the gathered, waiting kind of quiet. Something big has been heading toward them for a long time, something hungry, and now it’s here.

Leo murmurs something to Raph and Mikey, who speed off into the lair. Donnie hears the lock on the armory falling open, and then he refocuses on April’s voice and the thin stream of information she’s feeding him.

“Looks like small arms, mostly. Handguns.”

“Bad news,” says Leo, who’s draped over the back of Donnie’s chair to listen. Donnie gives him ano shit glare and brings up a new window on his monitor. The docks in question have been shut down for years, and even the security cameras are dead. No one uses this place; it’s dirty and old, the buildings surrounded with heaps of scrap metal.

April and Casey sweep this part of the docks on their patrols — never the same night, never at the same time, just two black-clad shadows moving from cover to cover, Casey all bulk and muscle against April’s fleet, quiet grace. They’re a good team. Donnie can say that without jealousy now. It took about eight years, but he can do it.

***

The patrols are what April does when she should be studying: she hunts down the last remnants of the Foot and the Kraang, and she destroys them.

Donnie knows April isn’t interested in vengeance. Her enemies assumed she was, back when they thought she was just a precocious little girl with too much power trapped inside her skull. But no, she doesn’t care about vengeance. She doesn’t want to make them pay for what they did to her and her loved ones.

She wants them  _gone_. It’s that pure, that simple. It’s her life’s work. Donnie knows it hurts her, that she’s not giving back to the world so much as she’s taking something out, but Donnie watched her come to terms with what she is. She’s a forest fire, not a river, and she’ll burn out whatever gets in her way.

***

Back in the present, April’s breath catches. Donnie hears the tiny hitch; his hands clench on the edge of his desk

“April?”

Distantly, he hears Casey whisper. “That fucker.”

“April, talk to me.”

She draws in a shaky breath. “We’ve got a problem, Donnie,” she whispers. “It’s Rahzar.”

Donnie bares his teeth, every muscle in his arms going wire-tight. Seven years ago, that bastard nearly put Leo in a coma, and left April with a set of scars that still bloom rose-red and angry across her back. Donnie knows; he’s the one who sewed her up after they got back underground.

Rahzar’s supposed to be dead; they saw him topple over the side of a building, snarling and whining, with one of Raph's sai sticking out of his chest. But he’s there, a sleek black collection of angles, sniffing the air, eyes gleaming in the dark.

Searching. Searching for April.

“What is it?” asks Leo. Donnie turns around and mouths a single word, a word that makes Leo’s eyes go flat and blank. He pushes off the back of Donnie’s chair and sets off at a run for the garage. Donnie takes a handful of seconds to grab his satchel and shove a random handful inside — flashbang grenades, smoke bombs, throwing knives.

“We’re coming to you,” says Donnie, and hangs up.

***

Donnie leaps out of the Shellraiser and crushes Casey’s mask underfoot. The wall of the building yawns over his head, three stories up, and this is very bad.

“We gotta move!” he yells, his brothers piling out behind him, and leaps up the closest fire escape. No need for stealth now; he can already hear the fight high above him, punctuated with the low cough of gunfire. 

“How’d he find them?” Mikey asks from a few feet beneath him. “They shoulda hid better!”

Donnie tries not to spell out all the reasons why hiding won’t work against a mutant dog-human hybrid who, against all odds, has come back from the dead. Ten more feet to go —

 _Oh shit._  Two smugglers converge on him from either side, guns drawn.

“Donnie, over here!” yells April’s voice. He can’t see her, but he doesn’t need to. It’s one of their tricks; instead of following her voice, he spins off in the opposite direction, looping back around the smugglers who are trying to find April.

He sweeps their feet out from under them, and Leo follows him, kicking their guns out of their hands. It gives them a second to assess, to breathe, before leaping back into the fight.

Casey’s on his hands and knees, retching, and one of the smugglers is pulling back their foot to kick him again. Raph moves, so quickly it’s obscene, and the smuggler topples with a  _sai_  impaling his leg.

“Bro! Can you walk?”

“I can walk,” Casey wheezes, and pushes himself up. He’s got one bat, and Donnie knows it’s more than enough. If Casey can stand, if Casey can swing, he’s okay. Donnie pulls his bo from its straps and leaps, arms held high, and lands his first blow squarely between a smuggler’s shoulders. The vibrations travel up his arms to lodge in his shoulders, but by the time he registers it as pain, he’s already moving again, form following form in a smooth, unbroken flow.

_I am the river. No stone may stand against me. I am the river._

The odds are just as bad as they always are: thirty against six, but numbers only mean so much against a group of six who know each other so well. Donnie’s lived and breathed and trained with his brothers as long as he can remember, and if April and Casey don’t have that advantage, they make up for it in other ways. Casey is a battering ram of a human being, a simple, effective bludgeon.

April is a knife in the dark.

She circles the edge of the fight, weaving and darting between figures. Donnie is only aware of her in glimpses, a lean figure in all black, her hair and face covered with a scarf. Once, as she spins past him, her  _tessen_  flashing, her hand brushes his arm.

_I’m here. Still fighting. Be strong._

One of the smugglers fires blind, a hoarse yell breaking out of him when the bullet bounces off the rooftop less than six inches from Leo’s leg. Leo freezes, eyes wide, and the smuggler aims for his head. Donnie starts to shout a warning — Leo, move! — but before the smuggler can squeeze the trigger, April lands a kick to the man’s neck that sends him flying.

Once guns entered the picture — real guns, with bullets, not the laughable Kraang versions — the game changed. The turtles fight for higher stakes now.

The smuggler might be dead. No one’s going to stop to check, not when the shadows at the end of the roof have begun to shift.

April cuts Donnie a quick glance, a simple  _with me?_  that he returns with a nod. By the time Rahzar forms himself out of ragged darkness, April’s in motion, slicing through the air with a cry.

Donnie hangs back and waits for his moment. Three seconds, two seconds, one.

When Rahzar swipes at April, she feints left and rolls under the sweep of his arm. The forward momentum of his swing carries Rahzar forward, stumbling, right into Donnie’s reach.

 _Perfect_ , he thinks, and swings. The move worked on Raph in practice, but only once. They won’t be able to do this again, but with luck, once will be enough.

His swing connects with the side of Rahzar’s head, right along the jaw. He pivots on one foot and cracks Rahzar in the back of the knee; when Rahzar falls, Donnie brings his  _bo_  down into the notch between the beast’s shoulder blades, where a fragile nerve center clusters.

Rahzar coughs and tumbles face-down onto the roof, claws scrabbling in the gravel as his eyes go dull.

The gunshots have faded. Each rough concussion is followed by a longer silence, broken only by Mikey’s yells and harsh panting as the last of the smugglers try to get away. Donnie presses his foot down over Rahzar’s neck, where the pulse beats low and fevered, and gives himself a moment to catch his breath and look around.

Raph is huddled against an AC unit, covering Casey as the man tries to shove himself upright. Casey’s neck is already bruised, like someone tried to choke him, and a burst of anger pushes Donnie’s foot down on Rahzar’s neck a little harder. On the far end of the roof, Mikey toys with two smugglers swinging pipes, dancing out of their reach and laughing. They’re clouded with fury, and have no idea that he’s leading them right into Leo’s orbit until his older brother leaps out of cover, silent and shadowed.

They’re all fine: battered but fine. April moves back into his sightline, a black shape against the night sky, making her perimeter sweep as the battle winds down. Rahzar shifts against his foot, growling, and April kicks him in the jaw as she passes. Donnie has to smother a laugh that’s made of more malice than humor.

The last two smugglers fall to the roof, and Leo stalks over to Donnie and April with blank eyes. It’s always disconcerting to see from the outside, though Donnie knows his don’t look any different. April moves to stand at the back to let Leo kneel in front of Rahzar.

“You should have stayed far away from New York,” says Leo, in a voice as sharp as a winter wind. “Things have changed since you were here last.”

Rahzar pulls in enough air to laugh, and Donnie adds a little more pressure on his neck. “Idiots,” Rahzar gasps. “You think the storm is over, but it’s just beginning.”

Between Rahzar and the roof’s edge, April flicks open her  _tessen_ , the sound small but emphatic. Donnie watches her, hungry for the sight of her in ways he doesn’t allow himself any other time. She pulls the scarf away from her mouth to flash him a grin he’s been seeing a lot more of since New Year’s, and one she only ever seems to use on him. But she’s still alert, with that clarity in her gaze that means she’s reaching out with all her senses, and Donnie’s heart twists with mingled pride and love when she nods the all clear.

She’s so strong. He shifts a few feet to his right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

Casey limps over with Raph’s arm around his shoulders, and they close in a tight circle around Rahzar, weapons gleaming in the night.

Leo gives Rahzar a sliver of a smile that chills Donnie straight through. “Whatever you’ve got,” says Leo, “we’re ready.”

Rahzar scoffs. “Are you?” he hisses, and kicks out behind him. April’s feet go out from under her, her arms pinwheeling at empty air as she topples backwards.

Three stories down.

“No —!” Donnie claws at the air, inches away from where April’s hand reaches out for his, her eyes wide and desperate in her white, bloodless face. “April!” He lunges, stumbling, choking,  _reaching_.

He feels her fingertips against his, and then she’s gone in a silent flutter of black silk. 


	2. Chapter 2

Raph has seen a lot of things he’d rather forget: Slash slamming Mikey into a rooftop, Splinter with empty eyes, Casey taking a bullet in the arm that was meant for him. 

The worst is Donnie’s face, in the split second between April falling and Donnie leaping after her. 

Raph tries to follow, instinct telling him to _go go go_ and help any way he can, but his feet won’t move. He’s frozen, caught in the replay: April falling, Donnie yelling, Donnie’s _face._  

Then pain blows the memory apart, and Raph drops to the roof, trying to scream to release the pressure around his spine. Nothing comes out but a high wheeze. Mikey wails nearby; even Leo groans, glacial calm cracking open as their senses are hijacked, someone else’s agony rioting through their nervous systems. 

_April._

The pain cuts off seconds later, leaving Raph gasping on the roof, blinking away the grey dots over his vision. When he pushes up on his hands and knees, not quite trusting his legs to hold him up, faint sense-echoes ripple up his right calf, converging in a furled, aching knot near the crease of his thigh. It hurts, distantly, like a toothache. And there’s more pain in his shoulder and back, deep in the muscle. In April’s muscles. 

Raph’s no stranger to pain — one of these days he’s going to wake up with an eye missing and he won’t even remember how it happened, that’s how used to pain he is. It’s fine. He can handle it. What he can’t handle is the way his body just accepts April’s like its his own, and how relieved he is that he feels it at all. If the pain were to stop — 

He shoves himself up, grateful that he managed to hold on to his _sais_ when he collapsed. Leo’s helping Mikey up, but Casey is still down on his knees, eyes wide and glassy. 

 _Casey’s out. Donnie’s out. April’s — out. Do the math._ Raph tightens his fists and takes an unsteady step toward Rahzar. The beast is slower to recover, his movements jerky, and Raph hopes with every single cell in his body that it’s because Rahzar got the worst of the blast. 

“Guys,” says Mikey, his voice shocked white, “Guys, we gotta — we gotta —“

Rahzar’s laughter, thick and clotted, cuts off the rest of Mikey’s sentence. “Gotta _what_?” he asks, his laughter boiling out of him “Ready for anything, huh?” he snarls, and starts to shove himself upright. “Too bad you couldn’t bring a real _kunoichi_ to the fight. You haven’t changed. Still can’t finish a fight.” 

Raph’s vision clarifies as the second lid slides down over his brothers’ eyes. Even Casey staggers back a step, and he’s seen them like this for years. 

“You haven’t been here in a while,” says Leo, the beginnings of a smile splitting his face. “We’ve got a few new things to show you.”

Mikey moves first. The subtle gleam of a blade flashes in his hand. 

“Raph, _go help Donnie!_ ” Leo yells, before the blade slides home and Rahzar’s laugh is cut off by a wet squeal. For once, Raph is happy for an order that doesn’t involve fighting, because it gives him something to do other than think _oh god oh god she fell oh god._ It lets him not see what comes next. 

He leaps down, clumsy and too slow, and lands next to Donnie. His brother has already stripped off the bands around his hands 

“Is she --” 

“Shut up,” Donnie snaps. “Just _shut up._ ” 

April is motionless under Donnie’s hands, lips parted and bloody. It’s bad, it’s so very fucking bad, and Raph’s gut lurches when he sees the metal poking out of her shoulder and thigh. Donnie’s hands are already covered in blood. 

“Donnie --” 

“ _I didn’t catch her_ ,” Donnie hisses, and Raph closes his eyes. Above their heads, Rahzar squeals again, and even though a part of Raph doesn’t want to imagine what’s happening, his mind insists on picturing it anyways. And there’s a part of him, much closer to the surface than anyone realizes, that wishes it hadn’t come to this. He and his brothers, they’re better than this, but Raph has started to understand about necessary evils, and about survival. 

 _Better him than you_ , he thinks at April, smoothing her hair out of her face. He pulls off her head scarf and hands it to Donnie the moment his brother holds out his hand.

Raph curls a hand under April’s jaw and counts. Her skin is clammy, even by his standards, but he feels a faint, thready pulse, and he hears a low, clotted sound as her chest lifts. 

She’s alive. And, just to add to the horror of blood and metal and Donnie’s stricken face, she’s waking up _._

He crouches next to her head and cups her cheeks as her eyes flutter open. Her control flickers, and some of the pain from her thigh and shoulder leaks through, hot and slick as oil. Raph holds himself still as it recedes, back into April, but now he feels her confusion, her brief, mute terror. 

“Raph,” Donnie whispers, still not looking up. “Raph, please.” 

He has no idea what Donnie’s asking him to do, until April's confusion crystallizes, and her terror transforms into horror.

“Wha…” Her voice trails off as she slides a hand down her hip. “Hurts.”

“Hey, Ape,” Raph blurts out, putting as much of an asshole spin as he can on the words. April’s bleary gaze settles on his, her mouth opening on a croak. Raph pats her cheeks and grins down at her. He can do this. He can keep her from looking at the mess of her body. “We so boring you had to jump off a roof to get away from us?” Donnie twitches, but he keeps his head down and his hands stay steady, wrapping her scarf high on her thigh. 

“Off a roof,” April echoes, blinking slowly. Donnie finishes tying the knot and April gasps. When she tries to look down, Raph pulls her gaze back to his with a finger under her chin.

“Right over the edge,” he says, forcing himself to keep grinning. April’s hands move like restless spiders over her chest and belly. “I mean, I get it, Leo’s boring as shit, but it was a little over the top.” 

 _Nice choice of words._  

There’s a scream from the rooftop, a mangled crash of sound, and Raph tears his eyes away from April for a half-second -- long enough for April to turn her head and see the shard of metal punched through her shoulder. 

“Oh god, oh my god,” she whines, reaching to pull it out. “Oh my god _what happened to me,_ Donnie, what happened?”

Donnie chokes and snatches her hands away, glaring at Raph. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got -- I’ve got you, April.” 

The twist in his voice makes Raph’s head ache. Donnie’s got her now, but he didn’t for the one second it counted, and he’s going to beat himself with that for the rest of his life. 

Raph will worry about that later. 

“Donnie,” says Raph, pulling April’s hands out of Donnie’s and pitching his voice so only his brother can hear it, “we’ve gotta move her. We gotta get her to a hospital.” 

Donnie blanches, but he nods, mouth in a tight line, and slides his arms under her legs. April whimpers, and Donnie cringes, but when he looks at Raph, he doesn’t blink. “On my count,” he whispers.  Raph copies Donnie’s pose, and when Donnie says “ _Now_ ,” he lifts. 

April screams until she gags, then she falls limp against Raph, already half unconscious. He meets Donnie’s eyes over her body, forces himself to hold Donnie’s gaze. He’s not going to leave Donnie alone in this. 

“The Shellraiser’s on the other side of the building.” Raph swallows. “We’ve gotta hurry.” 

Donnie shakes his head, one quick movement. “No time. Half the streets are one-way — it’d be faster to run.” 

Raph boggles. He knows Donnie has a city map in his head, but running? For how long?

“Seven blocks,” says Donnie, before Raph can ask. “I can make it.” 

Raph doesn’t question him. He lets Donnie take April’s weight, and something in him unknots as Donnie settles April’s head into the hollow of his shoulder. For a moment, Raph’s panic recedes and he lets himself think, _It’s going to be okay, Donnie will get her there. We’re okay._

“Meet me there,” says Donnie, and sprints into an alley. 

When Raph turns the corner, Leo already has the engine running, with Mikey and Casey leaning out of the back, arms ready to pull Raph inside. Raph swings up and slams the door behind him. His hands slip on the handle. Even in the dark, he sees his hands are sticky and wet. 

 _We’re okay_ , he tells himself, as panic roars in the back of his head. 

“Mercy General!” he yells, and Leo guns it, tires shrieking on the pavement. 

***

_February 9th._

_How did I not know what Rahzar would do?_ April thinks when Casey stops talking, her mouth dry and her tongue thick. _I should have known._

_Some kunoichi. And now everything’s a mess because I didn’t --_

“Oh god,” says April, and covers her face with her hand. “Oh god.” 

“Yeah.” Casey sighs. “It was bad, but you’re good now. We got you here in time for the doctors to patch you up all nice, and now that you’re awake you’ll get outta here soon, and --” 

She glares at him through her fingers. The last thing she needs right now is to listen to one of Casey’s slow meltdowns. He never bothers with things like emotions or trauma until long after the fact, then he declines spectacularly into uselessness. Rambling is just the first sign of what’s to come. It’s awful, but the only way to snap him out of it is blunt cruelty. 

“Casey, _shut up_.” 

He jerks his head up, flushing and already opening his mouth, but she grabs his wrist and squeezes till he pulls away. 

“You _do not_ get to freak out,” she rasps. “Because then I’ll freak out, and that is the _last_ thing I want to do. I’m okay. I’m fine.” 

She’s not okay. She’s not even in the neighborhood of okay, and Casey would know that even if she didn’t stutter her way through the lie. 

“How’s Donnie?” she asks, picking at her blanket and not looking at Casey. 

Casey scrubs his hand over his face. “Hasn’t come out of the lab since we got back. Splinter went in to talk to him, but…” He shrugs helplessly. April can only imagine how that conversation went. Splinter would offer kindness, hope, comfort, and Donnie would ignore it all, with a face hard enough to split stone. 

The last thing she remembers is Donnie saying, _We’re coming to you._ Always behind her, always there.But instead of celebrating putting Rahzar down, he had to patch her up again. Some things never change. She clenches her fists and tells herself again that she won’t cry, not yet. 

“April?” 

She turns away from Casey’s voice and squeezes her eyes shut. 

“Can I get you anythin’?”

There’s nothing Casey can do for the dry rattle in her chest, and anyways, all April wants is to be left alone. She wants to go back to sleep and not think of the patch of her memory that’s been wiped clean. She doesn’t remember falling, and if her head can keep that piece on lockdown forever, she’ll be happy. 

“Go home,” she says. “Get some sleep. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“I want to stay,” says Casey. He’s warming up to wear her down through his particular brand of well-intentioned stubbornness. Normally it would work, but April is done, _so done_ , and she summons up the last of her energy to point at the door and glare. 

“Home. _Now._ If the nurses tell me you came back before tomorrow morning, I will kick your ass, Case.” 

Casey gives her a dubious stare, one eyebrow arched, and she sighs. “It’ll be on the when-I’m-better to-do list. Now go, please. Go sleep.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Get better, Casey.” 

It’s a shitty way to apologize for not taking care of him, but Casey understands. He leans down and gives her a stubbly kiss on her forehead, one of the few places on her body that doesn’t hurt, and shuffles out of the room, exhaustion written on every line of his body. 

April counts to twenty after the door closes, then twenty again to be sure, and finally lets herself cry. 

*** 

A sharp gust of cold air wakes her hours later. No light comes through the curtains now, other than the spark of a far-off streetlight, and even the sound of traffic has faded. April blinks, wonders why she isn’t in her bed, then smells plastic and antiseptic. It isn’t long, just a breath or two, before the pain swarms up underneath her skin. Her shoulder and thigh still ache, but her entire chest burns, and there’s a tender spot on the back of her head that makes her wince when she brushes her fingers against it. 

 _Not a bad dream, then._ She shifts against her pillows, and then something pushes against her senses — not quite a sound or smell, not even a taste, but something between all three. Even with a sore throat and swollen eyes, she smiles, and knows Donnie can see it even in the dark.

“Casey told me he left the window unlocked,” he says. “I didn’t want to wake you.” 

“It’s fine,” she whispers. “I’m glad you did.” 

“I’ve got seven and a half minutes before the nurses come back around.” Donnie steps away from the window, looking everywhere but at her. April watches him check her IV stand, her morphine drip, even the machine that monitors her heart rate. It gives her an absurd, almost giddy burst of satisfaction to see him. Of course he’d want to watch her heartbeat on a screen, even if he’s close enough to reach out and feel her pulse for himself. 

“Donnie, th—“ 

“Don’t,” he says, going still with one hand on the rail of her bed. “Don’t thank me.” 

 _Oh, Donnie._ April swallows, her dry throat clicking. “According to Casey, it was all you. Well, and a little Raph, but I’m still processing the fact that Raph, you know, _cared._ ” It’s a lame attempt at a joke, but Donnie huffs a little laugh and some of the steel goes out of his shoulders. April covers his hand with hers. “So tell me who I’m supposed to thank, if not you.” Her voice rasps away into nothing.

“I wasn’t careful.” He pours her a glass of water and holds it steady while she tips her head back and drinks, her tongue clenching as the water slips down her throat. When she’s finished, Donnie refills the glass, but she doesn’t drink.

“Neither was I. If anything, you should be yelling at _me._ I should have figured Rahzar’d try something.” She sighs, wriggling her fingers in between his. “So let’s just skip the whole blame thing. If we’ve only got a few minutes, I’d rather not waste time on that. Okay?”

Donnie finally looks at her, and the worn, wrung-out cast to his eyes makes her flinch. “Okay.” He sighs. “Seems like your doctors are doing a good job.” 

April laughs, even though it hurts. Her back feels skinned raw, and she’s sure she’s got a few cracked ribs, but it’s so Donnie — so sure he could do a better job. To be fair, he probably could. “They are professionals, Donnie. I think they know what they’re doing.” 

“I know, I just wanted to be sure. You know. That you were okay.” _Because you almost weren’t_ , says the muted almost-color of his thoughts. 

Donnie won’t let her get away with lying the way Casey will, so she doesn’t even try. “I will be,” she says, and he rewards her with gentle pressure against her fingers. “I promise.” Something Casey said occurs to her, and she takes a deep breath, ignoring the jagged shriek from her ribs.

“What do you think Rahzar meant? A storm’s just beginning?” 

“No idea,” says Donnie. “We’re going to look into it. Whatever it is, he won’t be around to see it.” 

April shudders. She may be curious by nature, but she’s not morbid. 

Donnie shuffles his feet. “Three minutes,” he says. “Then I should let you sleep, but I’ll come back. Have to make sure the doctors are doing their job.” 

“Sure you do,” she replies, searching his face. It was bad, she knows that much, but he’s hiding the worst of it from her. She wants to draw it out of him, so he’s not walking around poisoning himself, but there’s no time. Instead of pushing, she grabs his arm with her free hand and tugs him down. 

Now would be the time for a kiss and a confession, if it were anyone other than Donnie. But she knows he won’t believe it if she told him now — he’d blame it on guilt, or the drugs in her system, and he might even be right. 

 _If not now, when?_ Her control wavers, and she steadies herself. If she lets go again, he’ll feel everything — not just the warmth and happiness at having him near her, but her body’s pain. That, she can’t allow. 

“Thank you,” she says, as fiercely as she can. “Without you —“ April lets the sentence fade, not knowing how to finish. 

He presses his forehead to hers, one finger touching her chin. For the space of one breath, he lingers, then his T-phone beeps a warning. 

“Time’s up,” Donnie whispers. “I’ll be back — soon, I promise.” 

“Okay,” she whispers back as he pulls away, reluctant to let him go. April holds on to his hand as long as she can, leaning after him until he slips out the window, spare seconds before the nurse opens the door.


	3. Chapter 3

The shaking starts as soon as Donnie eases himself out onto the ledge, seconds before the nurse pushes open the door to April’s room and floods the space with sterile yellow light. He sees April wince, one hand shielding her eyes, and then he ducks down, out of the nurse’s sightline, his teeth chattering. 

_She was so pale._

_Stop it. Grit your teeth, bite your tongue, do whatever you have to do to get home without being seen._

He slides April’s window closed, grateful for the wind; any sound the old rust-red hinges make will be hidden by the rattle of tree branches against the side of the building. It’s getting late —  _or early,_  he corrects automatically. Four in the morning is a chancy time, even in February. His brothers are heading home from patrol, ready to nurse their bruises from two nights ago with electric blankets and Splinter’s terrible, terrible green tea. 

And what’s he doing? He’s balanced on the narrow brick ledge of a rundown hospital, the chill biting into his arms and legs, trying to stop the tremors spinning out of his stomach. 

If the Foot were to find him now — but the Foot have been gone for years. Shredder is cold ash, Karai disappeared seven years ago, and even the Kraang are silent. 

Donnie closes his eyes, counts to three, then jumps to the nearest rooftop. The wind in his face gives him another reason — a real reason — to shiver, and the cold shock lets him focus. 

_Don’t think about her. Don’t. Think about — think about math. Math is easy, math is black and white, math is numbers and finite variables, math is concrete._

Math tells Donnie that the average adult human has two hundred and six bones in their body, so if April broke four bones in her fall and two more have hairline fractures, then approximately three percent of the bones in her body are cracked. Three percent, not much at all, especially when half of those bones are little, his thumbs are bigger, and --

 _Stop it!_  

He throws himself into the shadow of a water tower. The supports groan around him; he has to duck his head to get underneath. 

 _I grew another two inches this year so now I’m pushing six foot seven and great something else to make me more of a freak, even Leo thought six foot three was tall enough, maybe I got hit with more of the mutagen, Raph always thought I was a bigger freak than the rest of them and in a literal sense it’s always been tru_ e,  _now I’m a foot taller than April and she could barely move and her hands were so cold, they had to be_ freezing  _if I thought they were cold, they weren’t cold two nights ago, she was still warm when I got down there but now she’s cold and it’s my fault, it’s my fault —_

Just before his brain skids off into a complete panic-spiral, Donnie hears Master Splinter’s voice, cutting through the deluge like a blade through wheat. 

_“Find peace in the particulars, my son. Limit your world to the first thing you see when you open your eyes.”_

He inhales and holds the breath until he’s ready to open his eyes.  _Peace in the particulars. Right. Like that’s gonna work —_  

The first thing he sees is a nickel, tails-up, dirty with years’ worth of weather and city pollution, and he stares at it until it’s the only thing he sees. He memorizes every ridge, every curve, noting where time and wear have thrown the angles off and where one edge is wearing thinner than the others. It might have fallen out of someone’s pocket before he mutated. Maybe even before he hatched. 

When Donnie takes his next breath, the panic is locked firmly away, under his control again. His thoughts are speeding along their normal paths, steady bright filaments of reason and logic. 

Nothing can be done for the sick pit of guilt that keeps growing in his chest. He might not be shaking anymore, but he almost prefers the swift blade to the slow bludgeon. At least the former barely hurts. 

A glance at the horizon tells him that he’s got an hour before the sun comes up, if that, so he swings out from under the water tower and faces toward home. They all know why he didn’t go on patrol; when Casey texted him to say that April was awake and lucid, even Raph kept any wise-ass comments to himself. 

Donnie’s sure he’ll walk into a few of those when he gets back. 

 _Nothing worse than what I deserve,_ he thinks, cold and miserable, and doesn’t let himself take a backward glance at April’s blank window. 

*** 

“You sure we should be doing this?” Mikey asks, for the fourth time. He fidgets, darting glances at the roof’s edge, and Raph swallows the impulse to swat him upside the head. “It doesn’t feel right, not without Donnie.” 

Leo keeps his gaze on the skyline, eyes narrowed. “We’re fine. It’s better that he’s with April,” he says absently. 

“Better for him, or for us?” asks Raph, and earns himself a glare from both his brothers. “What? You two looked pretty antsy until he didn’t head out with us.” 

“Donnie’s in no condition to be on patrol,” says Leo. He turns back to the skyline. “He’s clouded. He’s lost his center.” 

Raph throws up his hands. “Are you kidding me? Spare us the spiritual bullshit, Leo. We all watched April get kicked off a roof.”  _And neither of you had to see Donnie when it happened, so shut your hole, fearless leader._  

Mikey whimpers, and Raph has time to feel a flash of remorse before Leo rounds on him. 

“What’s your point, Raph? Let’s get it out in the open.” 

“My point? My point is, April’s out of commission for, god, who knows how long, Casey nearly got choked to death, and Donnie’s losing his shit.” Raph shakes his head, and balances his hands on the hilts of his  _sais._  “Not to mention what you two did to Rahzar.” He waits for Mikey to whimper again before going on, but Mikey stays silent. He softens his voice anyways. “None of us have a  _center_  right now, Leo. We should be at home —“ 

“And what will that do? You heard Rahzar, the storm is just beginning. We need to be out here!” Leo sweeps his arm out toward the city. “We can’t afford to stay home. We need to hit them harder than ever.” 

“Them? Who the hell are you talking about?” Raph pushes off the vent and gets up in Leo’s face, forcing his brother to take a step back. He sees Mikey move tentatively toward them, ready to separate them if it comes to blows, but Raph’s not in a beatdown mood. What he is is  _bewildered_ , because Leo’s the one not thinking clearly, and that scares him. 

“Do you have a plan?” he asks. “You know, beyond ‘hit them’, whoever  _they_  are.” 

Leo sneers at him and turns away, glaring at the street below. “I thought that kind of plan appealed to you,” he says, his voice curdled. “Raph, the bruiser.” 

 _Jesus fucking Christ._ Raph closes his eyes.  _Like a river, over stone._ “Yeah, that’s me,” he says, wearily. “You got me all figured out, Leo. I’m the muscle. You’re the leader, you do the planning.” 

“Exactly,” Leo snaps, and even Mikey flinches when Leo turns around. His eyes are frigid, two chips of sapphire in a stiff, unfamiliar face. “So we follow my plan. Let’s go.” 

Raph grabs his arm. “Leo, wait.” His brother shakes off his arm with a hiss, but Raph grabs him again and pulls him back. “Look, Leo, I get it. I do. You’re pissed because no one saw it coming.” 

“You’re right!” Leo yells. “Of course I’m pissed! April nearly died because no one had any idea what Rahzar was going to do! No one, not one of us!” 

“Exactly,” says Raph, going cold all over. If Donnie had been with them, and not tearing himself apart on some empty rooftop, he’d have figured it out already. 

It’s wrong. Raph’s not the thinker, he’s not the heart, he’s not the leader. He’s extra muscle, a threat — he greases wheels, he doesn’t make them move. So why’s he got to be the one who gets it this time around? 

“ _No one_  knew _,_ ” he says, tightening his grip on Leo’s arm. 

Even Mikey’s eyes go wide. 

*** 

It’s past sunrise. Patrol is over, all tea has been drunk, and Raph is half-dozing under his electric blanket when Donnie straggles in, barely even bothering to pick up his feet when he walks. For the time it takes Donnie to cross the lair and close himself inside the lab, Raph debates just letting Donnie be. It’s what Leo would do, and Mikey too. They’d let Donnie weld and blowtorch and hammer out whatever’s bothering him before they went anywhere near the lab. 

But this isn’t an experiment gone wrong. It’s not a stumbling block. This is Donnie not even nodding along when Splinter tried to talk to him, and Donnie not eating in favor of staring at his phone for two days straight. When Raph closes his eyes, he sees Donnie seeing April fall, over and over. 

It can’t be Mikey or Leo. Raph’s the one who figured it out. Time to take responsibility for being the brains, just this once. 

He kicks off his covers and stalks to the lab.

Raph knows everyone thinks Leo’s the martyr of the family, but there’s a big difference between someone who’s willing to take a beating for the team, and someone who’s all too willing to give the beatings to themselves. 

Donnie’s got that on lockdown, but unsurprisingly, knowing this helps fuck-all when Raph faces Donnie over his desk. 

His brother has his head balanced on his fists, his elbows on the table. Everything about his posture screams  _go away, this is private, you don’t get to watch_ , but Raph steps inside and closes the door behind him. 

“How is she?” Raph asks, and gives himself two points when it doesn’t come out as a demand or an accusation. 

A long silence blooms between them, long enough for Raph to get ready to ask again, louder this time. Finally, Donnie drops his hands to the table and lets his head fall between his shoulders. “She’ll be fine,” he says. “Two broken ribs, a broken ulna —“ 

“I don’t even know what that is,” Raph interrupts. Stupidity — fake or not — is a sure way to get Donnie to stop in his tracks, but not this morning. Donnie blows right through it, still talking in a flat, bleached voice that sounds nothing like him. 

It makes Raph shudder. 

“— A broken bone in her left pinky, and hairline fractures in two of her —“ 

Raph huffs, not quite incredulous — not after so many years. “Dude, what’d you do? Read her chart?” 

“Yes.” Donnie spreads his hands flat on the table. “I didn’t need to, though. I was just confirming what I already knew.” 

 _Because he was there. Goddammit._  

“Don, she’s gonna be fine. Home in a week, back on patrol in two months.” Raph takes a tentative step into the lab, and then another when Donnie doesn’t look up. So long as Donnie doesn’t tell him to leave, he’ll keep pushing. He reaches the desk and sits down in an empty chair, leaning forward, almost into Donnie’s personal space. “I’m not saying it wasn’t bad, but —“ 

“Are you trying to make me feel better?” Donnie asks, without a noticeable change in his voice. “Because you’re the last person I expected to try.” 

Raph doesn’t even try to deny it.

***

Donnie waits. Of course Raph wouldn’t have a retort for that — not right away, at least.  _Give him a minute, he’ll have something to throw in my face._

But then time keeps passing, its flow unbroken by either of their voices, and Donnie realizes Raph isn’t going to say anything at all. 

“I have work to do,” he lies, and spins his chair toward his computer. “Get some sleep, Raph.” 

“You’re really gonna do this? Sit in here and beat yourself up over what happened to April?” 

Donnie can’t say  _yes_ , at least not out loud, so he settles for ignoring Raph. His brother sighs, disgusted, and shoves his chair back; Donnie nearly sighs with relief. Finally, he can sit, and let his brain unspool, and he can — 

“You know it wasn’t your fault,” Raph begins, but Donnie cuts him off. 

“Yeah?” He grips the edge of his computer desk, willing himself to stay sitting. “If not mine, then whose?” 

“Uh, Rahzar?” says Raph, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “He’s the one who kicked her, Donnie. Not you. And listen, Donnie — ” 

No. No. It’s not that simple. It never is. He’s Donnie. He fixes everything. When he was twelve he built a laptop out of trash and guesswork. When he was fifteen he built a robot and a mobile battle unit and he saved the world from aliens. He created  _the retro-mutagen_.

He was supposed to catch April. That’s what he does. He doesn’t let anyone fall. 

Especially not her. He’s never let her fall before. Always there, always ready — that’s Donnie. 

 _I’m so sorry, April. I love you and I let you down._ He closes his eyes. The crack straight through him can’t be hidden anymore; all his dark spaces opening up, wide and bleak and hungry. He kept hoping, on the flimsiest chance. But love is a hardier weed than hope, and it grows even when the soil is dry gravel. Donnie would have kept on loving April without evidence, without hope. 

So what if he saved her? She shouldn’t have needed to be saved to begin with. 

“One step, that’s all it would have taken.” Donnie lets go of the desk and heaves in a breath, lungs smarting. “And then she’d be here, not in the hospital, and I wouldn’t have had to hide from nurses to see her. And Leo and Mikey wouldn’t have had to kill Rahzar, and then maybe we’d know what’s coming.  _One step._ That’s the difference! Just one, and I could have caught her. Or maybe one step meant it would have been me going over the edge, and I’d have been fine.” He’s so close to yelling, but this is venom in an old, old bite, and he’s finally drawing it out. “I couldn’t even look at her, without seeing…”

“Is this what it’s like in your head all the time?” Raph’s face is a horrified mask. “It’s  _awful_.” 

“ _Tell me about it!”_  Donnie shouts, as something inside his chest snaps. “It’s exhausting. But it’s got to be me. Right? It’s got to be me that fixes things. At least that’s what I always thought.”

Raph’s hand falls on his shoulder, and Donnie’s too tired to brush it away. “You are,” says Raph, in as gentle a voice as Donnie’s ever heard him use, and when he squeezes Donnie’s shoulder, his hand is warm and steady. “But it doesn’t mean it’s your fault when things get broken, dude.” He clears his throat, awkwardly, and pulls his hand away. “Wow, that’s pretty much the sappiest thing I’ve ever said.” 

Donnie sighs. The moment, if there was one, is gone. “Yeah, pretty much,” he agrees, so tired he can barely keep his head up. 

“Hey,” says Raph. “I was just joking. I’m sorry.” Before Donnie can register that this is Raph  _apologizing_ , and to all appearances  _sincerely_ , Raph leans against his desk, a wry smile creasing his face. 

“Besides, you’re missing the most important thing.”

Donnie summons up the energy to raise an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What’s that?” 

“Nobody knew what Rahzar was going to do,” says Raph, and his smile widens when Donnie just nods. 

“Yeah, and?” 

“ _Nobody_ ,” Raph repeats, and it hits Donnie, cold water to the face. 

Nobody knew. Not even April. Oh, he should have seen this, he should have  _known_ , but he can’t even be mad at himself, because he’s too amazed that it was  _Raph_  who figured it out. 

Donnie blinks, and stares open-mouthed at Raph. His brother squeezes his shoulder again, his smile still a dry twist. 

“So don’t beat yourself up, Donnie. She’s gonna be fine.” He nods at the seldom-used cot in the corner of the lab. “Get some sleep. We’ve got a storm coming, and a lot to figure out before it gets here. Gonna need that brain of yours.” He gives Donnie one last, awkward pat on the shoulder, along with a yank on his bandanna, and leaves.  

Donnie watches Raph walk out of the lab, and for a few minutes, he doesn’t feel guilt. He doesn’t even feel angry. Just pure, sweet gratitude, toward the brother he least expected. 

He sits at his desk until he dozes, one arm propping up his head. He’s deep asleep and dreaming — dreaming of April smiling, her face turned toward the sun — when Raph comes in with a blanket and throws it over his shoulders. 

*** 

The doctors told April she wouldn’t be able to walk for more than a week, but after three days in bed, stubbornness forces her onto her feet. 

Something’s been niggling at her since she woke — since she really woke and could think in more than two consecutive sentences − and she needs to know. 

The window opens easily, thanks to Casey unlocking it whenever he visits, and the icy air feels heavenly on her skin. April closes her eyes, and reaches out with her mind. 

Nothing. She doesn’t feel a thing. 

Not one. 


End file.
